


LMX does Mick Rory Appreciation Week

by LMX



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Mick Rory Appreciation Week 2017, Mick Rory Loves Fire, Pyromania, Time Bastards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 10:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12769557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: Thought I'd post this to the collection with a little bit of polish.





	1. Day 1: Pyromania

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I've not watched any of this season yet so please don't spoiler me :)  
> LMX

For the hunter named Kronos, reading a target profile was a quick thing, before the more intense analysis of the folder usually marked ‘accessible and predictable timeline’.

While the personal details of a target could tell you a lot about how to approach them once they’d been located, it said little to aid in the initial contact and as such was usually an afterthought.

This time he’d been caught up on a detail, a single line on a secondary target’s profile. The accessible timeline really only suggested a small timeframe when the whole of this pirate crew were together, and the only reason he’d bothered to even check the secondary targets was that there was a high probability they’d be on board when he faced them. He hadn’t expected…

The target profile wasn’t unusual; the favoured weapon was a prototype of some kind, while dangerous not likely to penetrate his armour to reach anything as flammable as skin. He’d almost dismissed the target (dangerous but not unstoppable) when he came across the throwaway line “Impulse Disorder: Pyromania”, and his mind had… stalled.

He knew there was more in his head than there should be. That the other hunters were all blank (angry) slates, and his jokes fell flat because they had no context for them. Not that he could remember *his* context for them, but… Well he’d never come across something like this where all the not-empty parts of his head started screaming like they were right now.

For a moment it was like he was on fire. It was everything he could see, licking up his arms and across his shoulders and he’s *not afraid*. He was buzzing with energy and joy - a euphoria he’d never before known - and he knew he was hurting, knew he was *burning*, but it was a distant concern.

The memory faded, leaving his skin smarting and his breath short. He fingers were numb and stiff and he dropped the screen to the floor in his rush to get his helmet off. Even that wasn’t enough, and he struggled with the buckles of his chestplate and the coarse mail shirt beneath. Naked to the waist he focused on taking deep breaths, clamping down on his misbehaving lungs.

The adrenaline was still sparking in his veins, but his breathing was more steady when he opened his eyes again. The skin he was looking at was smooth and unblemished, but he had a stark sensory image of roped scars with odd patches of sensitivity and others of deadened nerves. He expected the image to be associated with pain and disgust - scars were a sign of failure among the hunters, a sign of a lesson that the Time Masters needed to stay learned - but the scars that no longer graced his skin were a source of pride, of bashful pleasure. He… regrets their absence.

He couldn’t explain what had just happened, what he had just experienced, so he gathered up his armour and the screen and closed the target profile before he could look at it again. He had a job to do, pirates were first priority and this team were doing untold damage to the timeline already.

But after that, maybe… maybe he’d find something that burned and see if he could find that euphoria again.


	2. Day 4: Food

The last mission for the Waverider Crew hadn’t given them much time for rest or sleep, and even food had mostly consisted of snackbars and water, even though the local food had looked delicious and smelled even better. It was with the aroma of the local midday meal wafting through desert-hot air that they stumbled back onto the ship and without discussion congregated in the mess hall.

With a dejected look, Mick scanned the low-salt low-fat no-sugar snack offerings on board. He picked up a beer with a sigh and turned to go, only to find Snart standing directly behind him, offering him a chocolate bar. It was a Snickers bar, 1990s branding and bigger than the 2016 equivalent, and Mick glanced over his shoulder at the others, who were all selecting their mediocre snack foods and eating them with a complete lack of relish.

Len wiggled the candy bar again and Mick snatched it out of his hand, trying to work out when they’d last been in the appropriate era for him to have picked this up. It wasn’t like the expiry date was going to be relevant, but months of time travel in one of the pockets of Len’s coat…

Well, he wasn’t going to waste this opportunity, and he changed his path to take a seat in front of the others, setting his beer on the table, his booted feet alongside as he turned his attention to the chocolate.

Len was smirking at him from where he was perched on the counter, as the others noticed and started groaning and complaining at the unfairness of it all. They’d tried more than once to get Gideon to replicate candy, chips and chocolate, only to be foiled at ever turn. The least healthy thing they’d persuaded her to produce was beer, and Mick suspected with wasn’t quite as authentic as it tasted. It took a lot more to get him buzzed for a start. (It was okay, he was willing to put the extra effort in).

Finally identifying the source of the confectionery, the team turned on Snart with the threat of a riot in their tones. Mick tuned out the hypocritical ‘stealing is bad, but why didn’t you get enough for everyone?’ and focused on really enjoying his candy bar.

Maybe he could get Snart to sneak out some baking supplies the next time they got shore leave. Cookies were easy enough to bake in batches to provide for the whole team. Trickier with Ray around, but there were recipes in Gideon’s data banks he had no doubt, if he could just coax them out of her.

That is… if Snart survived the glare that Sara was currently shooting him as he failed to present her with any more chocolate.


	3. Day 5: In Defense of Mick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate to think of how badly Mick was treated last season, and how hypocritical the team were about it. But anyway, this is the kind of scenario that wouldn't make it right but would make it better.

“We’re all on board," Jax shouted through comms, "Get us out of here!”

There was a solid crunch, like something heavy and hard hitting the side of the Waverider, and everything rocked briefly to one side before settling again. Sara risked a glance over her shoulder even as she started powering up the vertical lift engines, the Waverider lurching into the sky.

There was another solid hit that turned the bridge into a bowling alley as everyone stumbled towards their chairs, and Sara glued her eyes to the readouts as the Waverider’s nose nearly scraped the ground before she could compensate.

They hauled themselves up and into the sky, pushing for orbit where the fighter jets wouldn’t be able to follow them. One day she was going to grab hold of a Time Master and ask why the hell 22nd century cloaking technology didn’t make them invisible to 20th century radar, because really?

“We’ve got to shake them off before we hit orbit,” Mick growled from his seat as the Waverider took another hit.

“I’m trying,” Sara shot back, swearing as Gideon offered a series of ever more elaborate evasive maneuvers for her to try. She started a sequence only to take another hit and have to drop altitude to avoid the next missile. “The Waverider isn’t exactly as maneuverable as a…”

“Hey!” Jax objected immediately. “Don’t blame…”

“You just need to…” Mick started over the top of him.

“Look out!” Martin shouted, interrupting them both as Sara threw them all to the side of their harnesses to avoid the incoming fire from *another* jet.

“If you think you can do any better…!” she gasped as they flattened out again.

Maybe she was just being sarcastic, but Mick was already out of his seat, hands on the controls before she’d even registered he’d moved, and edging her aside as she slipped out of her harness and gave up the seat.

“Just don’t crash her!” she said, and Mick didn’t have time to roll his eyes, too intent on the command console, so he let himself imagine Snart doing it from the corner. He'd always been better at the sarcastic eyeroll. Sara scrambled to the other seat as the Waverider rocked violently, and two missiles zipped by beneath them.

The Waverider jolted again, and Mick risked a glance at the status bar to check that Sara’s harness was down before executing a series of commands that made the Waverider drop in a high-gravity way that made Nate yelp and Jax shout ‘careful!’ before they tilted up and made a turn towards orbit.

Gideon materialised in the centre console with a scowl. “Please remember, Mr. Rory, that I am *not* a hunter-class warship and we *are* still within the atmosphere.”

“Two more turns in this tub, then we’re out of atmo,” Mick said, in a tone that made Gideon’s eyes narrow further and Martin’s hands tighten around his harness. “Trust me.”

The G-force of the next turn made the blood rush in their ears, and the Waverider’s structure groan, but he still heard Sara say, “We do, Mick.”


	4. Day 6: The Rogues Gallery

Mick cared a great deal for Len and Lisa, he really did, but between them they had a bad habit of picking up superpowered strays with this kind of idealistic view that if you put the right people in a big enough room you could make a family. Problem was, neither of them really knew what a family looked like, so it seemed to fall to *Mick* to hold their so-called Rogues together, smoothing over the misunderstandings and conflicts that came from putting a dozen misanthrope loners, thieves and killers in a confined space and asking them to get along without killing each other (or anyone else).

At least none of the others thought they could *lead* this shit show. A couple of them had briefly thought they’d do a better job, but none of them had gotten far enough to challenge Snart before Mick had stepped in to remind them what the pecking order was. Instead, they mostly just heckled and complained when Len laid out his plans. Which more often than not left Mick with *Snart* who needed his ruffled feathers smoothed.

They had yet to put together an anti-Flash plan, but it seemed like the Speedster had some other things on his plate (by the name of Zoom) so they’d been using his distraction to make the little group an astounding amount of money. It mostly kept the others quiet - and often kept them out of town spending their misbegotten gains, which helped too.

It wasn’t like they were living together or anything - no building would survive their combined chaos plus superpowers for more than a couple of days. They’d already destroyed a couple of safehouses just with their meetings, and if the Flash and his team of cheerleaders really wanted to find them, they wouldn’t have to try very hard with the trail they were leaving. Mick sometimes worried that this was not accidental on Len’s part.

He could tell Len was getting bored; his plans were getting bigger and stupider, too many moving parts and too much complexity. Something was bound to go wrong, and Mick was just starting to get comfortable in this new safehouse. Granted, that was when Snart seemed to perform best, just as everything started to go to absolute shit, but the safest way to redirect that energy was to find him a challenge. Some of the other Rogues had been making noise like they wanted to be the one to kick Team Flash to the curb, but it wasn’t really worth it when he was so distracted by Zoom, or recovering from the latest dramatic Zoom-related injury. And who did this Zoom think he was, attacking *their* superhero and bringing all these competing supervillains around their city.

“That Black Siren can come again though!” came the call from the back, and Shawna flickered across the room to give Mardon a sharp slap before dropping back into her seat. Lisa lent over Piper’s lap to give her a high five. Jesse fell about laughing, and there were a couple of other smirks flying around too, as Mardon simmered.

“Play nice, children,” Snart chided, finally stepping into the room from where he’d been hidden just out of sight, taking it all in. “Seems to me Zoom’s stealing all the attention for himself,” he mused.

Mick rolled his eyes. What a joke, coming from this guy.

The Rogues were eating it up, though. Listening to this plan that basically amounted to *helping* the biggest thorn in their side, a damned superhero, just because they enjoyed the challenge of facing off against the kid. Not to mention this guy they were talking about taking on, he’d been just about walking all over the Flash the last few months.

Nuts, the lot of them.

They made things fun, though. Couldn’t deny that.


	5. Day 7: Free Day

Hunters came and went, generally too fast to even bother remembering their designations or trying to tell apart their armour. They were disposable, consumable. Unlike the Time Masters there was little training time to cost for, hunters were taken out of their timelines with existing martial skills. The Occulus Wellspring was used to acquire them at peak ability and they were given a crash course in timeship piloting and basic maintenance and repair. Just enough to be sure they would bring back their ship for as long as they were capable and then leave it fit for recovery when they were finally and irreversibly incapacitated.

Every so often there was one that survived past their predicted lifespan, and those were made into legends among their compatriots and the Time Masters themselves. It was important to remind the young and impetuous ones that if they disappeared with their timeship, there was a powerful force waiting to descend upon them with no mercy. And it was important for the hunters to have someone to look up to, as if their survival was a result of skill and action instead of random chance. Time Masters were never sent on any missions with an aspect of random chance. They were too expensive to train.

They were in need of a new hunter when Hunter started his ridiculous crusade, and it took nothing at all to test the Occulus against the time period he’d chosen and pick out a couple of threads hanging slack. Little to no historical impact on their removal. One was no good, impetuous and high-energy, all wrong for a hunter. The other though…

He wouldn’t appeal to Hunter for his crew, though. It wouldn't be easy to directly manipulate him onto Hunter’s ship for delivery back to the Time Masters along with Hunter himself. There would need to be some interference, but then there were already so many of the Wellspring’s fingers in this inane quest of Hunter’s. What was a few more?

They picked a thread that was Hunter’s curiosity in the anti-hero - his interest in the League of Assassins was easily tweaked - and then to ensure that the friends of Barry Allen (curse his Speed-Force entangled timeline) spoke on record about redemption arcs within Central City’s criminal element.

Hunter would never be persuaded to take on their new hunter alone, though. They had trained him to be narrow minded, to see in black and white, and he would struggle to see the use for a wild card arsonist. The Time Masters had always been protected from seeing just how much of their work was done by the untrained muscle behind the scenes, unlauded. The dirty work. The messy work. He would not see the benefit in brawn and persistence.

He would see the benefit in a mastermind thief, though.

They would need to be recruited together then, these two loose threads - not impossible, they were already quite interwoven. The timeline would need to make sure they were together and on good terms when the time came, that the record would show they rarely worked apart and would not agree to such a mission separately, and that the thief had the impetus to agree to Hunter’s ridiculous plan. Only small tweaks in the scheme of things.

They stepped back into the Occulus Wellspring, playing history like a musical instrument as they guided the future into place. The hunter Kronos stepped out of history and dropped to a respectful knee.

“Sir.”

A glance, barely taking in what had been a moment’s work to change to future of two men. They would regret it later, this disregard, but they would not get to regret it for long.

“Good. I have a job for you.”


End file.
